Free The Devil's Cold Dish by Eleanor Kuhns

of the room. In the back, the kitchen half, Caroline sat at a wooden table with a carved oak cup before her. Even from the door Rees could see the faint sheen of greasy grime that covered the table. Dirty dishes littered almost every surface. Georgina, the youngest child, was eating an egg with her hands and yellow yolk smeared her face and the hair that hung unbrushed from her cap. Gwennie, the eight-year-old, bent over the spider, cooking another mess of eggs. “I’m sorry, Mama,” she was saying. “All the yolks broke.” Like her sister, Gwennie’s clothing was ragged and dirty. The grayish tint to Caroline’s apron and cap betrayed too long a span without laundering. Rees stared at his sister in shock. Caroline had always been the fastidious sister.
    Gwennie bent precariously close to the flames as she poked at the eggs. But Caroline seemed not to notice. She stared blankly into her cup as though trying to read the future. “Caroline,” Rees said. What was wrong with her? He crossed the floor in two strides and snatched up the little girl. “I think the eggs are done,” he said to her as he moved her away from the fire. He wrapped a towel around the spider’s handle and pushed it to the front of the hearth.
    Caroline did not even turn her head to look at him.
    He looked down at the little girl. “Have you eaten yet?” She gulped and shook her head.
    â€œThese are for my mother. She hasn’t been eating.”
    Rees looked at his sister, really noticing her scrawny arms and angular, bony face for the first time. How had he not seen this before?
    â€œTake Georgina out to the trough and wash her face and hands,” he told Gwennie, lifting her younger sister to the floor. Both children could do with a bath. They smelled. “Then go out front and ask David to give you some food. He brought over a basket.”
    â€œReally?” asked Gwennie. He nodded and they ran out eagerly.
    Rees sat down in the rickety chair across the table from Caroline. She slowly raised her eyes. “I want to talk to you about something,” Rees said. She released her cup and looked at him, a faint light beginning to glow in their depths. She smiled slightly.
    â€œIt’s a good time to move,” she murmured. Rees ignored her comment, rushing forward with his question and eager to have this conversation finished.
    â€œBesides the chickens you’ve stolen from me—”
    â€œThey’re mine,” she interrupted.
    â€œNo, they aren’t. But forget that for now. I want to know why you’ve been spreading rumors about Lydia.”
    â€œRumors?” Caroline said as though she didn’t understand the word.
    â€œClaiming she’s a witch.”
    â€œI—well, it was only once or twice. And how does it feel to have your spouse badly treated?” For the first time since his arrival, Caroline spoke with some animation. “Are all the old tabbies ostracizing her? Well, good.”
    â€œDo you know what you’ve done?” Rees’s voice rose in volume to a roar.
    â€œDo you know what my life has been like?” Caroline shouted back. “Look at how I’m living, my children and me. I have to go ask Father Stephen for charity every Friday night. Every single week. Do you know how shaming that feels?”
    â€œSitting around in the kitchen doesn’t help,” Rees said in a judgmental tone.
    â€œWhat do you expect me to do?” She began to sob.
    Rees stared at his sister, his emotions a tangle of anger, frustration, and regret. He wanted to shake her, make her see her responsibility in this. At the same time, he wondered if he should be doing more to help her, and that guilt aggravated him all over again. “I’ve known other women who managed,” he said. “Why, I knew a girl in Salem who ran her own shipping business.”
    â€œDid she have three children?” Caroline asked. “And